Obscure Revelations
by Curious Onlooker 18
Summary: Caught in a tangled fabric of time, Carmen desperately seeks to understand why she is slipping between two worlds. Slightly AU. Please R&R! n.n
1. Tortilla Chips and Arrows

Carmen, an average person like you or I, has been hounded by Fate. By day, disasters and misfortune mark her wake. By night, she unknowingly slips between the two worlds – unaware that her dreams may hold the key to the past of the world and the future that awaits.

_Obscure Revelations_

* * *

Getting settled into her over-stuffed chair, Carmen tore into the bag of chips, the smell of ground corn and salt filling her nostrils. Her mouth was already watering. Holding off, she reached over to the coffee table, opening the picante salsa. She had forgotten the bowl and had to break the large, triangular chips into pieces small enough to fit into the opening of the salsa container. She avoided picking up the chunks of vegetables, instead allowing the chips to absorb the spicy liquid.

"Mmm," she sighed. It had been a long time since she had had the dish. She popped in a few more chips before balancing her laptop atop her knees and hit the power button. While she was waiting for the computer to start up, she watched the end of an X-Files rerun on the Sci-Fi channel. When she noticed the Windows screen seemed frozen, she huffed, putting the salsa container on the arm of the chair and pushing the power button repeatedly. The screen flickered and she felt a shock run through her index finger and down her arm.

"Damn it!" she cried, knocking her hand away. The salsa flew to the floor and spilled all over her open backpack and papers. "Ah, for freaking cripes sake!" She closed the laptop, placed it on the floor and began extracting her now coated papers from her pack.

This day wasn't shaping up to her standards at all. A stupid person outside had decided to debut his new trunk audio system by blasting it as loud as possible at 7 this morning. By the time the neighbors had yelled out their windows threatening him with a call to the cops, Carmen was already wide awake. Then her cat had gotten sick on the bedroom floor – a point of fact she hadn't realized until she'd stepped in it. Now this. At least the salsa had only gotten on the math test that she'd gotten a 65 on.

As she scooped the last of the chunky spillage into the trash bin, the X- Files ending theme began playing on the television. The music began warping as she washed her hands in the kitchen. Curious, she returned to the living room, watching as the television screen faded in and out, the sound distortions getting louder and louder. She grabbed the remote, but the tv wouldn't shut off. The buttons on the front panel also seemed to be inoperative. On the verge of giving up, she unplugged the cord from the wall.

"Ah! Success! Small miracles," she mumbled. She slid down the wall besides the television, cord still in hand and watched her computer's lights powered down. Oh yeah, this was definitely not her day. A small meow at her elbow told her Tawny was upset.

"It's alright, boy. Come 'ere." She picked him up and went into the kitchen. Peanut butter always made him feel better. She only hoped he'd keep it down.

Carmen didn't feel much like pushing her luck with the laptop again and with the television on the fritz, she had few options of entertainment left to her. She could read, of course. But she had read all of the books available to her more than once. There was a gym down the street... but it was over 100 degrees outside and she wasn't up for a stroll down the sizzling sidewalks. Then, there was sleep. As half-heartedly as she tried, she couldn't see any downside to that option. She was exhausted and she didn't have any plans with her friends until tomorrow afternoon.

Dragging herself onto the bed, Carmen could only hope when she woke up fate would stop hounding her.

The blackness that began her dreams was present. But she realized that this darkness was the beginning of a dream. She was never aware of her dreams – never able to control the stream of events. This was new.

The black gave way to random spots of light. These eventually brightened until she was surrounded by a bleak and desolate land. The ground was broken and dark; weeds grew rampant and she could hear no animals – no birds, no insects nearby. The sky was clouded and shadows moved between them. The smell of rain was heavy in the air and the little grass that grew beneath her naked feet was damp.

"My god," she whispered. "This is so realistic." She kneeled down, picking up a small pebble from the ground. Dirt caked her fingers and stuck beneath her nails. She dropped the pebble, smearing the mud between her fingers and on her pajamas. It was a little too realistic.

She began walking toward a wooded area not far down the slope upon which she stood. A sound of rustling from the trees gave her pause. As she opened her mouth to speak, a twisted black arrow embedded itself in her chest. She looked down at it, marveling at the fact she couldn't feel it before she heard a grunting. Several more arrows struck her torso. As she fell backwards, she watched as the world played in slow motion. The last moments she remembered were the wrapped feet of several large creatures running past her fallen body.


	2. Elegy and Webs

Carmen stepped from the shower, snippets of the dream still present in her groggy mind. She couldn't recall what had happened or where she had been, but she could remember the fear and utter cold she felt – the sensation of falling and impacting the ground. She didn't want to remember. Wrapping her hair in a small towel, and a warm terry cotton robe about her body, she wandered into the kitchen and pulled a soda from the refrigerator. In the living room, the television hummed with the sounds of commercials. She was going to tell her roommate that the damn thing had finally broken down, but when she had woken up last night, her roommate, Jody and one of her sorority sisters had been sitting there watching Ever After. Strangest thing. Jody had said both the tv and the Dish were working perfectly.  
  
Her computer seemed to be up and running again as well. She'd had Kim look at it when he'd arrived earlier that afternoon and he couldn't find a single thing wrong with it. It was as if the entire electronic community was conspiring against her. The entire situation reminded her of that frog from the old cartoons. For the pauper, the frog would sing and dance his green Broadway laden vocal cords out. For the rest of the world, he would sit like a lump and ribbit. Well, now that the television was ribbiting like a good little entertainment device, she was going to lounge in front of it, nibbling on popcorn.  
  
She was still thinking about that dream... she'd had that overwhelming sense of foreboding all day. Even while Kim and Giao were kidnapping her for an afternoon of Badminton, it had been like a cloud over her, haunting her steps. Each time the shuttlecock was spiked towards her, she'd watched it, her breath slowing while her pulse pounded in her ears.  
  
She collapsed into the chair. X-Files was starting again. She'd seen it before; she'd seen most of them before, but it beat most of the other dribble on just after primetime. This one was particularly frightening. It was "Elegy." There were ghosts of recently deceased people that could only be seen by those that were dying. Carmen sat, frozen before the screen, too afraid to eat a piece of popcorn until the commercials were on. The phone went off during one of Mulder's rants, the ring eliciting a yelp before Carmen realized she needed to answer it.  
  
"Hello? God, Kim! You freaking scared me! I'm fine. Yeah, I'm watching X- Files. Yeah... okay. I'll see you guys again on Sunday. I'll try to find Pablo's number before then, okay? Yeah. Okay. Bye."  
  
She sighed, returning to her seat, embarrassed that a little call had startled her so. After the episode began to wrap up, the television began to hum. A few minutes later, the screen began to flicker. As the credits began to appear, the images warped and the audio became garbled again. Where were Jody and Kim when she needed them; where was the crowd that would give witness to the pauper's dancing frog?  
  
She wasn't even going to try the computer right now. That would just be folly. But she wasn't tired just yet. If the little demon infecting her tv and laptop were trying to give her a hint to go back to sleep, then they'd be put off for a while longer. She would read instead. There was at least another hour of daylight available to her – and besides, Kim had leant her a book of poetry that he'd borrowed from the library earlier that week. It wouldn't take her the entire hour to peruse the slender text.  
  
She retreated to the couch near the window and opened the curtains – to face the largest dust storm she had seen in many years beginning to uproot the trees nearby and cover the sky. It was depressing watching the red clay dust swirling and impacting against the window. She could hear the distant cracks of thunder. A dry storm. No wonder her hair was standing on end.  
  
She stood watching as the red sky darkened and the trees became sinister figures that beat against the pane with fingers she could no longer see. Jody would probably wait until it passed before coming back. Shivering, Carmen walked into her bedroom and dressed in her flannel pajamas. She checked the thermostat. It was at 80... how could she be cold? She retreated back into her room and burrowed beneath the thick comforter. God, it was ironic. She was in the middle of the desert in June of all months, and there she lie, under the largest comforter she had. She chuckled, snuggling down for sleep.  
  
.....  
  
She awoke in her dream. She was lying on her back. There was grass near her head and many small rounded rocks. Carmen hadn't thought one could be groggy in their own dream, but she was. She groaned, sitting up slowly. Her chest hurt but when she looked down, she seemed fine. The landscape looked familiar, but she couldn't place it. There were mountains far in the distance and close by a forest. The sky was dark – near dusk – and a few clouds flitted overhead. Yawning, she arose. This was a dream and yet ...  
  
She took a few hesitant steps towards the forest, something in the back of her mind warning against it. She wondered what could be the harm. There was certainly nothing off towards the mountain, nor in the plains surrounding the forest. She proceeded into the dark woodland, her feet finding soft underbrush upon which to tread.  
  
Her path was uncertain, but as far as she could tell, she had been walking in a straight course for nearly an hour. But what was an hour in terms of dreams? As far as she could tell, the sky was now black. But that blackness could not outdo the gloom of the forest itself. The trees themselves seemed to move and block her path. She couldn't even be sure of the way she had come.  
  
Above her, the night was obscured by the thick canopy and the leaves shifted when she walked below. Curious, she finally stopped and looked up – just in time to see a dark shape drop down upon her. She felt herself being rolled and covered in a sticky substance. Something penetrated her abdomen and she felt herself becoming faint. The last instance she could recall was the feeling of flight as she was pulled into the trees.  
  
.....  
  
Carmen rolled over, kicking off the cocooning comforter and opening her eyes. Between the blinds of the window, the world still lay in darkness. She strained her tired body, her hand searching beneath the bed frame for the alarm.  
  
"God, it's only 2 in the morning?" She pushed the clock back under the bed, and went back to sleep.  
  
.....  
  
She was falling. It was strange, waking up within one's dreams to the sensation of falling, yet there she was. It did not take her long to hit the ground.  
  
"Ow," she grunted, more out of habit than pain. She was not sure if she was injured; she didn't think she'd feel the hurts either way. What had happened before the fall, she did not know. Again, that stifling air of familiarity was there... tangible to her, but just out of the reach of her memory. She began to walk through the wooded area. So dark was it within the forest, that she could not tell if there was light beyond the trees.  
  
She heard the sound of water splashing not far off and she began to hurry towards it. She hadn't seen the river until she had fallen into it. There was a sensation of cold and she became submerged in the shadowed waters. Beneath the surface, where she would have expected death, she instead found herself walking along the pebbled bottom and voluntarily making her body float through the liquid. At one point, her head broke the surface and she caught sight of a figure, silhouetted by a series of torches.  
  
It called out and the torches were immediately extinguished. How curious, she wondered to herself. Though she could not see it, she knew the figure had been moving closer, following her progress downstream. She stiffly swam towards the land on which the figure had been seen and waded onto the bank. Her limbs were not responding as she wished, and once out of the water, she had trouble standing on her own. Her legs gave way and once again, she had the sensation of falling to the ground. She could feel that the figure was near to her now. Standing over her. Speaking to her. The words were muted and the world faded from view. 


	3. Arising anew

"God, Carmen, wake up!" She felt her body being shaken and she groggily sat up, squinting through bleary eyes to make out the person before her.  
  
"Jody?" A relieved sigh was heard in the room.  
  
"Dammit, Carmen! You were scaring the shit out of me."  
  
"Wha-What I'd do?"  
  
"I've been trying to wake you up for the past few minutes. I couldn't even tell if you were breathing! God dammit! Give me a heart attack this early in the morning!"  
  
"Jo, I'm sorry. I guess I took a sleeping pill or something," she mumbled, lying back down and covering her face with her covers as Jody turned on the bedroom light. "When did you get in?"  
  
"I was over at Jamie's. The fucking storm came through and blew out the power. I tried to call to see if you were okay and there was no answer. God, I was so fucking worried Jody! I thought the doctor told you to keep off those pills!"  
  
"Yeah, I'm sorry Jody. I don't even remember taking it. Stop shoutin,' will ya?" Jody raised a brow and regarded the lump before her.  
  
"I'm going to go make coffee – don't even think about going back to sleep!"  
  
"Wouldn't dream of it," she muttered, burrowing deeper into the comforter. Curses could be heard over the sound of the sing over the sink running in the kitchen and the clinking of ceramics on the countertop. But Carmen wasn't up long enough to smell the grounds being brewed.  
  
.....  
  
She opened her eyes, only to find a beige world around her. She was lying prone and the ground was soft beneath her. She breathed out, and the beige world moved slightly. She rolled over, only to find herself wrapped within a gossamer fabric as she went over the edge and fell to the ground below. She disentangled herself from the shroud and came to her feet. She was in a room – a stone room, perfectly square with no windows, a few standing candles and one arched opening that was partially covered by a drape.  
  
Still dragging the gossamer shroud, she took a few cautious steps towards the drape, the sound of conversation a little way beyond. She pulled the curtain to one side and found a dirt passage way. An alcove had been cut into the wall opposite the portal in which she stood, a small torch lighting the ground at her feet. She could hear the sound of men down the hall off to her left. They were laughing, conversing merrily about their lives. She walked towards them, her footsteps as unheard and leisured as those in dreams. When she found them, cutting away at the end of the hall, carving the passage way deeper into the ground, they still did not realize her presence. She watched them in silence. They looked like woodsmen, dressed in work tunics of brown and green. The torches flickered as a gust of wind breathed down the corridor. The men laughed, breathing deeply and turning towards the fresh air. Their shouting is what alerted the guard.  
  
She was not touched, but gathered about, swords at the ready as more and more were called to observe her. She stood silently, taking it all in. The people were moving slowly and their questions sounded sluggish and drawn out to the point where she could no longer make out the words. She staggered back to the room she had seen before, the crowd forcing themselves out of her path with something akin to fear. Heavy lidded she pulled aside the drape and dragged herself and the gossamer fabric she still clutched like a security blanket up and onto the pillow-laden stone tablet and fell to sleep.  
  
.....  
  
Carmen awoke to the sound of sirens. Her body was being jostled about, but she could feel harnesses around her upper torso and strapped across her thighs. As she came to, the rolling board that she was on halted and the paramedics began to speak to her.  
  
"Do you know where you are," an attendant asked, opening an eyelid and shining a light onto her pupil.  
  
"An ambulance," she stated blandly, trying to extricate her hand to shield her eyes.  
  
"What is your name?"  
  
"Carmen Desoto."  
  
"How are you?" She laughed, unsure how to answer. The last thing she could remember was Jody and the promise of fresh coffee.  
  
"Um, I'm fine. Seriously. Where's Jody?" The attendant shouted and Jody hurried over, her cell phone in hand.  
  
"Carmen?! You're awake! Fucking hell!"  
  
"Ma'am. Please."  
  
"Sorry," she said unapologetically to the paramedic. Turning her attention to Carmen, she resumed her inquisition, if not a little more restrained.  
  
"Carmen, I – I had to call the cops. I couldn't get you awake. They thought you'd gone into some sort of comatose shock shit."  
  
"I told you, I was just tired."  
  
"No, you said you had taken pills! For fuck's sake, Carmen, I'd thought you had overdosed on something!"  
  
"Miss, I'm going to have to ask you to restrain yourself," the paramedic stated over her shoulder, while taking Carmen's blood pressure.  
  
"Um, no offense or anything," Carmen said, unstrapping herself from the gurney. "But I'm really quite fine. I just overslept is all." An apparatus appeared in from of her face.  
  
"Breathe into this please."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"I just need to check your blood alcohol level."  
  
"Okay...." She blew hard into the device and it was withdrawn from her view. She hopped to the concrete below and walked to observe the scene. The siren of the ambulance had been turned off, but the combined lights of the police patrol car and ambulance lit the faces of her neighbors standing in various states of disarray along the stairs and from the doorways of the apartment complex. Many were still in their pajamas and robes, their morning wake up call a bit earlier than they had planned. A policeman had called Jody over and was taking her statement while the second paramedic had begun packing his equipment. The first kept trying to escort her into the ambulance, worried that she might still be under the influence of narcotics. She batted the woman away and hurried over to Jody.  
  
"Jody, I think you just misheard me. Officer, I'm okay. I just had an exhausting day of activities. My body was so worn out, I doubt Mt. Vesuvius would have woken me up." The officer smiled, his faced confused, while Carmen dragged Jody close.  
  
"Jody. Really... this was a little over the top, don't you think?"  
  
"Damn it, Carmen. I left you to make some coffee and when I get back, you're the definition of a vegetable. Nothing. I screamed, I shook, I poked with sharp sticks and you didn't wake up! I fucking had to do something!"  
  
"Yeah, I understand. Just take care of this. I have got a major headache." Seeing the questioning look of her friend, she sighed. "Bad dream." She smiled, clutching the side of her head and she made her way up the stairs and into the apartment. What a weird freaking week.

.....


End file.
